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Luca was in prison, now he has hope – a family, a home and the chance to take on Deborah’s garden, neglected since her husband’s death.

Deborah was a respected hospital manager until a tragedy forced her into retirement. Hounded by the media, then bereaved, she is brittle and reserved. Luca, with his youth and grace, has an uncanny ability to know what she needs.

Luca makes the garden live again. Deborah increasingly depends on him. But the past hasn’t gone away. Luca’s new life is under threat, and some people can’t forgive what Deborah did.

Nat Keane never forgot her first murder. Sandie Thurston, killed and mutilated in her own bed. Five-year-old Amy beside her, soaked in her mother’s blood.

Nat was the first police officer on the scene. She was the family liaison officer who got close to the family. Too close.

Ten years on she has another life, a partner and a job she loves counselling trauma victims. So why does she agree to go back and work with Amy?

Amy’s evidence was key to getting a conviction. Now the media are hinting she got it wrong. Her father is tortured by a guilt he won’t explain. At fifteen, Amy is alternately needy and hostile – a devoted daughter who deceives her dad, a sheltered child who can’t stop taking risks.

As Nat is drawn into the family’s secrets, is she helping them find the truth or complicit in their lies? Who did kill Sandie?

This is the story of a drowning, a heatwave and a painting that shouldn’t exist.

The death of octogenarian sea swimmer Maud Smith doesn’t excite much interest in the Devon seaside town of Dormouth, but it changes the lives of three people she never met.

Insomniac Brenda, walking her dog on the beach at dawn, finds Maud’s body and loses a husband. Now her house is falling down.

Jim, reluctant Londoner and heir hunter, loves birds, fresh air and suddenly, Maud’s neighbour. Maud’s tangled past with a local artist might just change his future, but he has a mortgage on a basement and a woman who’s not ready to let go.

Cemetery manager Neil clears Maud’s flat then promptly moves in. He attends the funeral and flirts at the wake but can’t fully account for a painting missing from her estate.